The situation at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant now has Japan officially on maximum alert.
To give an idea of just how much highly contaminated water they must try to remove before any more work can continue on the damage plant: Just one of the tunnel/trenches under the reactors holds 6,000 cubic meters of contaminated water, more than two Olympic swimming pools.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio says they have no choice but to keep pumping water in, to keep the reactors from melting down.
The American Red Cross announced that, so far, $120 million has been raised to help the people of Japan.
$10 million has already been sent to Japan, and another $50 million will be sent in a few days. The rest will be sent as it becomes available.
Due to continued parts supply shortages caused by the 11 March disasters, Toyota is now telling dealers NOT to replace damaged parts.
Toyota wants dealer auto shops to make in-house repairs of damaged parts, when possible. Toyota says there could be at least 233 parts that are not available. They did not specify which parts, but could involve parts for suspensions and air bags.
Starting March 30, Honda will cut back on production within Canada and the United States.
Honda officials say the cut backs are due to prolonged shut down of parts suppliers in Japan. They do not know how long their production cut backs will last.
Honda has also warned car dealers that parts for their auto repair shops are dwindling. They told the dealers to expect shortages.
Honda did not give specifics regarding their production cut backs, but they hoped it would be enough to avoid total factory shut downs.
A joint research team from Yokohama National University, and University of Tokyo, surveyed the city of Ofunato, in Iwate Prefecture.
Things like fishing gear and remains of boats were found on a cliff. The only way the stuff could have gotten to the top of the cliff was if the Tsunami was at least 29.6 meters high (97 feet).
The height of the March 11 tsunami varies along the Japanese coast line, because of the shape of the land. The bay at Ofunato is very narrow and would force the wave higher.
Remember when Gaddafi told international media that al Qaeda was behind some of the “peaceful” militant protesters? Even if you don’t, the U.S. media, and our government, laughed his claims off, saying it was proof he was crazy.
Guess what the U.S. commander of NATO said? Admiral James Stavridis said there were “flickers” of al Qaeda within the rebels. The admiral’s statement was backed up by a senior counter terrorism official, unnamed because he is not authorized to speak to the media. He said there is “…a sprinkling of extremists to perhaps include al Qaeda,” adding that “It’s hard to tell who all the leaders are in the opposition.” So our government doesn’t know who we are supporting? We could be supporting al Qaeda? Who’s crazy now?
Operation Odyssey Dawn is, according to President Barack Obama, going to be handed over to NATO on Thursday, April 1 (don’t be surprised if it’s an April Fools prank [heh, April Fools, Thursday is actually March 31]), so that the United States will no longer be in charge of attacking Libya. But who is in charge of NATO? The United States!
Already Obama has lied about U.S. involvement in Operation Odyssey Dawn, being just days, not weeks. When the official hand over to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) takes place on Thursday, it will be a week and a half since the coalition military action began. Remember, Obama swore to Congress it was only going to be “…days, not weeks.”
What about NATO? First of all, the United States created NATO in 1949. The United States has been behind the push to expand NATO since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991. By the way the Soviet Union was why NATO was created, so why is NATO still around 20 years after the Soviet Union ceased to exist? Because the United States wanted to keep it around.
Who runs NATO, literally? The United States. United States Navy Admiral James Stavridis is the current military commander of NATO. In other words; Obama is NOT handing off control of Odyssey Dawn, it is still under the control of the U.S.
By the way, this is why French President Sarkozy did not want NATO to take over. So far each “coalition” member has been doing their own thing. No real coordination. Sarkozy did not want France to lose direct control of their military action against Libya. By Sarkozy is the one who pushed everyone to pass the UNSCR 1973.
A Pentagon spokesperson explained that the real reason to turn things over to NATO, was money. The U.S. doesn’t have the money to continue most of the actual military action. By shifting to NATO, most of the military action will carried out, AND PAID FOR, by other members of NATO. NATO will still be run by the United States.
Now what about the name of this military action against the Libyan government? “Operation Odyssey Dawn”: Odyssey means a very long trip. Dawn usually refers to the start, or beginning, of something. Mmmm, beginning of a very long trip? Can you say Freudian slip?
Lies, lies and more lies!
As of 28 March 2011, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality is not reporting any increase in radiation levels in Idaho, on their RadNet site.
Also, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare believes that currently the risk of high radiation levels, from Japan, is still low.
The IDHW has a Japan situation page that lets Idahoans know about monitoring, food safety and FAQs like; “Should I start taking Iodide?”
(don’t take iodide unless you’re real close to a nuclear disaster ’cause to much iodide is bad for you)
Officials are struggling with the latest set back at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant; flooded turbine rooms.
The turbine rooms are where the coolant is cooled, basically giant heat exchangers, or radiators. The problem is that the rooms have flooded with water that has mixed with fuel rods in the reactor cores, making the water highly contaminated. Before they can do anymore work they have to get the water out.
Tokyo Electric Officials were thinking of pumping the contaminated water into the turbine condenser (it’s like a radiator on a car), but, oh yeah, the condensers already have water in them. The contaminated water is so bad that it’s basically nuclear waste. You can’t just let it drain out into the ground water , or ocean.
So they are trying to drain the condensers, and then pump the contaminated water into the condensers. They’ve already begun on reactor 1 turbine room. Reactor 2 turbine room has radiation levels of 1,000 millisieverts per hour. TEPCo officials don’t know when they can attempt to drain reactor 2 turbine room because of the radiation levels.
They’re also dealing with a tunnel/trench found under the reactors, and found filled with contaminated water.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yukio Edano, says the “Grand Vision” of reconstructing Japan will include clean energy.
Edano made it clear that reconstruction planning is on the back burner due to the current disaster, but that clean energy will be one of the “pillars” of the plan.
He mentioned bio-fuels and solar power, as being examples of the type of clean energy that will be used.